


something in the world you can't leave alone

by Wildehack (tyleet)



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, F/M, Gen, Horror, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-12
Updated: 2019-06-12
Packaged: 2020-05-02 07:43:23
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,499
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19194646
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tyleet/pseuds/Wildehack
Summary: “Statement of Tim Stoker, regarding an–ex-coworker.”





	something in the world you can't leave alone

**Author's Note:**

> fataldrum asked for "Jon serving one of the less usual entities. Flesh? Buried? The Slaughter? The Stranger? The Hunt?", and this was my take :)

Tim resents everything about his job, but nothing more than this: sitting across from his boss, who he used to think was alright before she got promoted and promptly became just as creepy as Gertrude fucking Robinson used to be, getting his secrets apologetically wrenched out of him while a tape recorder whirrs on the desk.   
  
“Tell me about the train,” Sasha says, sounding faintly sad about it, and he grinds his teeth together so hard trying not to answer her that he manages to spit blood onto her desk after he breaks and says: “Statement of Tim Stoker, regarding an–ex-coworker.”   
  
“Sasha James, the Archivist, recording,” Sasha finishes softly for him. “Statement taken live from subject. Who was he, Tim?”   
  
“It was Jon Sims,” he says bitterly, the whole confession drawn smoothly out of him like she had tugged on a wire and now he had no choice but to dance for her. “You know, who used to work up in Research? Stuffy, distracted professor-looking guy? I used to think he’d gotten himself fired. Should’ve known none of us would be so lucky.

  
Anyway, I haven’t seen him since before Gertrude Robinson went missing. Hadn’t thought about him in months, even in passing.   
  
It’s not so surprising that I’d see him on the Tube. You do run into people from time to time. But this was different. We’d just left Waterloo Station, and there was something odd about the light. I don’t know how to describe it, exactly, but it was–-wrong. The darkness of the tunnel was heavier than it should be. There were only a few people in the car, and a few of them had been talking to each other before the train started moving again, but they all fell silent. The car started to feel–heavy.   
  
I should have got off at the next stop. I’m not an idiot; I would have, even though the station didn’t exactly feel right either-–the shadows were still too dark, even though you could plainly see the sign for Embankment through the windows. Everyone  _else_  left the car. But someone came in just as I was standing up to go–-or I think he came in-–I didn’t exactly see him approach. Didn’t hear him, either. I felt him, though, when he grabbed my wrist.  
  
 It was Jon, but more exhausted than I’d ever seen him before, and terribly pale, like he hadn’t seen the sun in weeks.   
  
He said my name like-–well, like he’d seen a ghost, even though he’s the one who looked dead.   
  
I said “Hi, Jon,” and tried to pull my wrist out of his grasp, heading for the doors, but he wouldn’t let me.   
  
“No,” he said, still with that odd note in his voice, like he-–like I meant something to him, like I was more than someone he used to exchange pleasantries with in the canteen. His hand was cold and implacable, like a vice around my wrist.  “No, please, let me do this for you.”   
  
I stared at him, and I heard something loud happen before the the doors closed, like an avalanche or a cave-in, but there wasn’t time to see what it was before we were moving again, still in that heavy dark. “What happened to you,” I asked him, and he gave a horrible choked laugh. I had the strange idea, all of a sudden, that this wasn't Jon Sims at all, but someone I'd never met.  
  
“I shouldn’t have opened it,” he said finally. “There isn’t a way out. There isn’t even an up.”   
  
I asked him what the hell he meant, and he just pointed out the window, and I saw that the train wasn’t moving through darkness at all, any longer; it was moving through earth. There were _roots_ pressed against the windows. Exactly like Karolina Górka’s fucking statement.   
  
I tried to tear away from him but I couldn’t break his grip. I just ended up dragging him with me towards the door between cars, and he didn’t need to tell me it was no use-–I could see for myself that the earth had already swallowed us up.   
  
“It’s the Forever Deep below Creation,” Jon whispered to me, and I tried again to get away from him, but it was like struggling with-–the deep strong root of a tree, grown up around the bone of my wrist. I tried to hit him, but it felt exactly as futile as trying to strike solid earth. “There’s only one way to leave.”   
  
He was just staring at me through all of this, and the expression on his face was–-very sad, almost yearning.   
  
“How,” I asked him, breathing hard as the ceiling started to buckle over us. “How do you leave?”   
  
He brought his other hand up to my neck, and pulled me in close, so his lips were right up against my ear. It sounds–-intimate, but-–it was just, just part of the claustrophobia of it all. He was too close, his breath, his words, all of it too close. He smelled like a stone cave, dark and empty. I don’t know how to put it beyond that. He said: “Remember that you belong to the Eye.”   
  
I flinched, hard. I told him I didn’t belong to anyone but _me_ , damn it. His thumb stroked at the back of my neck, like being comforted by–-a stone, something cool and inhuman.   
  
“I wish there were another way,” he said, with that same choked laugh. “God, I wish I could give you that, after the Circus. But I’m afraid it’s only ever a choice between two evils. Please, Tim.”   
  
I believed him. Of course I believed him. I didn’t know him, I didn’t know how he knew about the Circus, but I  _knew_  him. Another sorry bastard from the Magnus Institute that Gertrude Robinson–-or Elias--or _you_ \--decided was acceptable cannon fodder in your fucking evil war. Eaten by the Forever Deep, like Gertrude fed Michael to the spiral and you fed Martin to the spiders.   
  
“You want to see the sky again,” Jon said. “You don’t know what it’s like. Just swear yourself to the Eye, and I’ll have to let you go.”   
  
But I couldn’t do it. I still won’t. You’ll probably eat me in the end, but if I have anything to say about it, you’ll choke on me.   
  
One of the windows finally burst, and the earth came rushing in to meet us, loosely at first but with increasing pressure, until I was clutching desperately at Jon, trying to keep my hands on something–-nearly human-–but of course as soon as I lost sight of him all I could feel was the earth itself, crushing me on all sides.   
  
I could still talk, somehow, although I had to keep my hand pressed to my mouth to keep the dirt from pouring down my throat, so everything I said was muffled. I wasn’t saying anything worth hearing–-just the usual, cursing God and you and all the monsters in the goddamn world-–when I heard Jon sigh, right by my ear, like he were still embracing me.   
  
“All right,” Jon whispered. “Not the Eye. You need an anchor, Tim. You need something to pull you out. Think about-–something you need to  _do_ , someone you love. Something in the world you can’t leave alone.”   
  
And I thought about you, Sasha.   
  
Not the Eye. Not the Archivist.   
  
You.   
  
“Ah,” Jon said, and suddenly I could feel him again, human as anything, one hand grasping my wrist and the other still wrapped around the back of my neck. I grabbed at him in animal relief. He kissed my cheekbone a bit clumsily, and then he said “Give him hell,” and then he finally let me go, fingers peeling away one by one.   
  
I woke up alone on the platform at Victoria Station, and promptly coughed up dirt. I came straight here, although I did my best not to.   
  
I did hold off as long as I could before coming into your office, though. Long enough to see the breaking news on my phone: derailment on the Northern line. Fifteen bodies recovered just inside Embankment Station.   
  
I guess he did save me.  
  
And I think I know for what.

Do you?"   
  
Tim falls silent at last, his throat raw with talking, and Sasha is still staring at him, her eyes enormous and wide. She looks caught, which is ironic given that he's the prey.   
  
"Statement ends," she says after a second that lasts forever, and fumbles at the tape recorder.  "Tim," she begins, her voice just shaking a little.   
  
He doesn't let her finish, getting up to his feet. He works his sore jaw. "Can I go, Sasha?"   
  
She looks up and up at him, then finally looks away.   
  
"Go," she says.   
  
He goes, but of course he'll be back. There isn't an out.   
  
There isn't even an up.  
  


**Author's Note:**

> Come out to ~~the vacant lot behind the Ralphs~~ wildehacked.tumblr.com and huddle with us
> 
> https://wildehacked.tumblr.com/post/185529810740/tma-prompt-jon-serving-one-of-the-less-usual if you'd rather reblog there


End file.
